Rumour and Violence: The Making of an Uprising

Abstract

This chapter follows the spread of the uprising in Romania and provides an account of how, within a matter of weeks, a localized incident snowballed into a country-wide rebellion threatening to remove all state authority and making a mockery of military action. It explores the ways in which peasants from distant villages got wind of the uprising elsewhere, how news circulated and what happened to this information in the process. Popular rationales for joining the uprising, newspaper reading strategies and dissemination as well as the role of popular mythologies are brought to bear on the speedy spread of violence careering from one village to the next.